Abstract: The subject of the study is the exaggeration and understatement of the phenomenon in the modern English art text. The object of the study are nouns that act as a means of depicting an exaggerated and understated time continuum. The author examines in detail the semantics of such lexemes as second, minute, moment, year, hour, day, age and their changes within the framework of combinations with other lexical units, during which time intervals are stretched or narrowed. Special attention is paid to the presence of dictionary and author's phrases in the fiction text of the fiction genre, their quantitative calculation and analysis of the frequency of use. The novelty of the research lies in the search for new non-dictionary and author's phrases that are able to reflect time in terms of its exaggeration and understatement. Such an image of time affects the description of the hero, their actions, the characteristics of not only places, but also specific characters. A special flow of time in the context of a fiction genre literary text is caused by a different flow of the time continuum. The main conclusions of the study are the identification of a high frequency of the use of non-dictionary phrases for exaggeration and understatement of time, as well as a change in the meaning of dictionary phrases that are enclosed in the context of a dicteme that allows to expand the semantics of the proposed vocabulary combination of lexemes.